The Civil War and Reconstruction (HIST 119) Professor Blight offers a number of approaches to the question of southern distinctiveness. The lecture offers a survey of that manner in which commentators–American, foreign, northern, and southern–have sought to make sense of the nature of southern society and southern history. The lecture analyzes the society and culture of the Old South, with special emphasis on the aspects of southern life that made the region distinct from the antebellum North. The most lasting and influential sources of Old South distinctiveness, Blight suggests, were that society’s anti-modernism, its emphasis on honor, and the booming slave economy that developed in the South from the 1820s to the 1860s. Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: open.yale.edu This course was recorded in Spring 2008.
Posts Tagged ‘Slavery’
2. Southern Society: Slavery, King Cotton, and Antebellum America’s “Peculiar” Region
Friday, October 29th, 2010Slavery in the United States
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010The white of the southern wanted to be powerful and that is why they were so much against the religious ceremonies of the slaves as they felt that the grouping would give them the chance to form rebellious movements against them. That is why they feared for the racial equity because they did not want to be equal with the slaves once slave trade was abolished hence the war. They argued that the non slave states were proclaiming the debasing doctrines of the equity of all men irrespective of their color and that the African race was rightfully held and regarded as inferior and dependant race.
They argued that the policy would make them decolorized and degraded. As James McPherson wrote in his book Ordeal by fire the civil war brought about reconstruction. Although a lot of solders died in the war, the war brought to an end the slavery in the United States, restored the union and strengthened the role of the federal government. The slaves who were no longer referred to as slaves had no fear of practicing their religious ceremonies and the whites perception to the religious ceremonies did not matter to anyone, as all the people were equal. There was freedom of worship and the Africans had the freedom to worship whichever God they felt was right for them.
The slaves in the pre-civil war America and during the civil war found strength and solace in observing their religious ceremonies, which were rooted, in the African ancestry. Many slaves practiced African rituals and customs, which incorporated polytheism and communion with the natural world into their religious practices. According to the slaves the death rituals were celebratory and maintained their African meaning. Dying in the ritual meant going home and thus it symbolized freedom. The slave owners who were the white were however discouraging the African practices requiring the slaves to attend formal services and to accept their condition of life as the will of God.